


Close Enough To See

by echoinautumn (maybetwice)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Communication Failure, Consent Issues, Curses, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fuck Or Die, Lack of Communication, MacGuffins, Magical MacGuffins, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 03:47:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5032552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/echoinautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Cadash gets more than she bargained for when she triggers an old Tevinter curse. </p><p>Set after arriving in Skyhold, pre-Explanations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Enough To See

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for [this prompt](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/15060.html?thread=59089876#t59089876) on the Dragon Age Kink Meme. Please, please mind the tags, as there are some questions of consent heavily involved in this, and I would hate for someone to be upset or surprised by it.

The Tevinter temple, and the artifact that brings them there, is no more notable than any of the others they’ve had cause to visit. The objective is straightforward, the artifact they’re searching for suitably mysterious, and the imposing statues, dragons, and occasional trap door are as routine to Cadash as anything is since she became Inquisitor. If anything could be normal to her now, it’s this: winding through the ruins at the head of their group, Cassandra half a step behind her, scanning the shadows with her hand on her sword. Dorian chats lightly from behind, and Blackwall is silent from the rear of the group. 

Cadash is beginning to wish she’d brought Varric with them. Even when the group dynamic of the party is tense, as it has since Haven, Varric’s endless fount of stories is a welcome escape. She absently nods along with whatever it is Dorian is explaining about late Drake Era architecture, or some such thing, and pushes a door open, her shoulder connecting firmly with the stone before she realizes that it isn’t budging. It’s glowing.

“Inquisitor, I wouldn’t--” Dorian doesn’t have the chance to finish his sentence. Spell light flares along the cracks of the door engulfing Cadash completely, even as she leaps away, and the force of it knocks Cadash to the ground a some ten paces away.

Cassandra’s shout is the first sign that something has gone awry when Cadash comes to herself again. She’s only been out for a few seconds, maybe, but she feels dizzy and there’s a hot sensation all along the surface of her skin, as if she’s stayed too close to a campfire for too long. She sits up and Blackwall’s hand is outstretched to help her to her feet, though he doesn’t quite look her in the eye as she struggles up. She touches her armor instinctively, but there are no tears in the material, only a pulsing glow the ruddy hue of iron and blood.

“Dorian, what’s happening?” Cadash keeps a note of panic out of her voice, though the hot, sunburnt feel of her skin is intensifying as swiftly as the spell glow fades. 

“A moment, Inquisitor.” Dorian’s fingers spark with magic and the whole wall flares with bluish light and runes that she can’t read. Some ancient language she can’t read, but Dorian mouths words under his breath, his eyes flying across the inscription. 

“Well?” Blackwall’s face is hidden by his helmet, but the word is low and clipped short, betraying his sudden urgency. 

“I could read faster without your badgering.” Dorian’s mouth pinches tighter when he makes a slight flourish and steps back to read more of the wall. “I think you’ve been cursed, Inquisitor.”

“Cursed.” Cadash echoes the word in a flat voice, thinking of her last conversation with Varric. The strangest shit that happens to her, indeed. “What does the curse do?”

Dorian frowns. “Kill you, I think.” 

Cassandra takes a desperate step forward, a strangled noise dying in her throat before she seems to think twice about the possibility that she might be caught in the magic net. Blackwall strides past her to Dorian’s side, his hand at his sword, and Cadash sees cold fury in his eyes. 

“You--I don’t--what does it say about lifting the curse?” He stops short when Cadash holds her Marked hand out to silence him. The Anchor sparks angrily, but Blackwall holds position, stubbornly staring her down. The first time he’s made eye contact with her in weeks, she thinks wryly, and it’s in defiance of her.

“That’s enough, Blackwall.” When she turns her face back to Dorian, the Tevinter sweeps his eyes up from Blackwall’s boots to his face, as if deciding whether or not it’s safe to look away. “Does the inscription say what triggered it?”

“Well, I can only guess, but these ancient magisters were quite insular. You aren’t a mage--or perhaps it’s that you aren’t human, it isn’t clear. These gentlemen weren’t especially _particular_ about the worth of non-mages.” His expression flashes an apology, but his eyes fly along the wall. “It could have been enchanted to keep away anyone who didn’t know the appropriate counterspell.”

He’s chattering on to make her feel more comfortable, Cadash realizes with a stab. She presses her lips together, holding her body very still, though the damage is done. There’s no way she’s going to be _more cursed_ at this point. “What would that counterspell look like? Surely there’s a chance that one of their allies might mistakenly trigger the curse. They would need a solution.”

“Yes, I thought so, too.” Dorian’s eyes flit to hers for an instant, his mouth turning upward in an approving smile, before returning to his reading. “Suspicious bunch, they were, but thorough. Always thorough. I always admired some of the ancient spellwork they left intact in the old temples. You really must admire the craft, if not the _outcome_ they were going for.”

“Do you mean some of those foul blood magic spells they used to keep their slaves in line?” Blackwall’s angry snort does nothing to set her at ease, but his arms are crossed and he seems content enough to let Dorian work without interrupting.

“Strange,” Dorian responds airily, “I wasn’t aware you were an expert on arcane matters, Warden.”

“Enough already!” Cassandra sheathes her sword and finally strides forward purposefully. “Give Dorian time to read. Inquisitor, how are you feeling?”

“It doesn’t hurt, if that’s what you mean.” Cadash is even brave enough to touch her fingers to her chest, but the ruddy spell light has completely dissipated now--or seeped through her skin, more likely. She feels hot all over, and oddly constricted in her armor. She finds Blackwall’s eyes on hers again and she stares back until he turns away to watch Dorian. 

It’s been this way since he took her up to the battlements and rebuked her for--for what? For daring to care about him? Cadash had been too stunned by the allegations he lay at her feet to respond then, but resentment flames in her belly now, the humiliation and anger she’d felt when he told her she couldn’t value him over any other life under her command, as if she ever would show favoritism. 

But that was months ago and she’s respected his distance since then, even though he is flagrantly avoiding her. She can hardly treat him any differently now. She could hardly treat him the same as the greenest recruit, who will at least sputter half-complete responses to her polite questions. Whenever she enters the Herald’s Rest, Blackwall finds reason to leave quickly, or carry on in conversation with someone else, without looking toward her once. And what is she supposed to conclude from that, but that their flirting in Haven was a mistake he’s since come to his senses about?

Then there’s the matter of that charming Orlesian scout Cadash has seen leaving his quarters long after the start of the third watch. The truth is bitter: Blackwall has moved past her. Cadash could live with it if he’d just told her from the start what the problem was, instead of masking it with something about duty and impartiality.

“Oh, how _crude_.” Dorian interrupts her thoughts abruptly, his voice falling with disappointment as he turns back to them. He flicks his hands away to dispel the magic lingering at his fingertips. Something about the gesture strikes Cadash as disgusted, but it’s her he turns to next with a half-hearted attempt at optimism. “Well, I _am_ happy to say that the curse can be lifted, and we are now able to enter the inner chamber and retrieve the artifact with no further obstacles.”

“It sounds like there’s a great big _but_ hanging on the end of that.” Blackwall’s voice is edged with impatience, or fear.

“Blood magic?” Cadash feels for the small dagger strapped to her back, closing her fingers around it. If it’s blood magic that will lift the curse, then--well, she is glad, at least, that Dorian is as _gentle_ as he is knowledgeable about magic.

“Blood magic would have some sort of dignity to it, at least,” Dorian sniffs in response. “No, the spell demands something much more… primitive, if you hope to break it.” 

“And what would that be?” Cassandra turns her head to the side with that dangerous glint in her eyes that Cadash has already learned to recognize. She looks up at the wall, as if that will answer her question, and then back to Cadash. 

“Something about proving worthiness, releasing excesses, engaging in the worldly before aspiring to the divine. The usual linguistic dithering of the ancient Tevinters.”

“I beg your pardon?” Cassandra’s expression is incredulous as she sweeps her eyes up Dorian’s frame, as if looking for an indication that he’s joking. Then she makes a guttural noise of disapproval and seems to regard Cadash again with a crease between her eyebrows. 

“Sex,” Dorian answers in an even tone, as though none of them had yet figured it out.

Though she is now burning more from embarrassment than the curse, Cadash tries for casual: “Though this hardly seems appropriate, I suppose I can see to _releasing my excesses_ if you don’t mind leaving me alone for a few moments.” 

Dorian looks genuinely embarrassed for her, looking just above her shoulder rather than meeting her eyes. “While that would be a perfectly splendid way to sidestep the demands of most of these sorts of spells, I am afraid that won’t help in this case. Ancient magisters share a certain closed-minded attitude with their modern counterparts.”

“Quit _dithering._ What are you getting at?” Blackwall’s whole body is taut with suppressed emotion. Cadash finally realizes what Dorian trying to avoid saying, what Blackwall figured out before her.

“A man,” Dorian explains. “You are a woman, so the spell requires that you lie with a man.” Cadash sees the anger, the hurt in Dorian’s eyes, and she understands quite how much trouble she’s in. 

The noise Blackwall makes takes Cadash by surprise. Though his eyes are on her again, they are unreadable to her. Her heart squeezes painfully, but her mind is racing forward, thinking of ways she can make this work. There is a loophole to everything. Surely there is for this, as well. Her mind whirs through her options, but she has few, and none of them are particularly appealing to her, no matter the different reasons for each of them. 

She rubs her knuckles into her left eye, trying to think. “How long do we have to figure this out?” 

Dorian exchanges a quick look with Cassandra and waves a hand dismissively. “I suppose you have perhaps six--ten hours. We could return to camp to regroup. See if we have, ah, an alternative.”

“How certain are you?” Cassandra’s voice is low and concerned and Cadash is moved by her affection for her, however hardwon it has been. 

“As certain as we can be right now.” Dorian tips his head toward the door, which appears to be unremarkable and mundane, now that its purpose has been fulfilled. “The spell on the door had only enough magic left for this. The rest of us should be in no danger.” 

Cadash squares her shoulders. So long as there is work to do, no bloody _curse_ will keep her from finishing what she started. “Very well,” she says with steel in her voice. “If the door can be cleared, we enter the chamber to retrieve the artifact, return to camp to deal with the curse, and send scouts to search the ruins for anything of value.” 

The others don’t argue with her, and door opens with almost no trouble. There is only the faintest whisper of magic around them inside the chamber as they search with veilfire, and the artifact itself is easily found. Cadash finds herself furiously hoping that it’s worth the effort of what she will need to do. 

By the time they’re on their way back to camp, everything seems nearly normal again.

Except that something builds slowly at first in Cadash, slow enough that she doesn’t notice at first. There’s the persistent heat, but when she turns her head to see Cassandra striding next to her, her leathers shift just enough to generate friction at the apex of her personal mound, and she swallows a gasp. The curse, she realizes, clamping her jaw shut and increasing her pace. She needs to reach the camp before she can decide what to do.

Cassandra falls back to Dorian’s pace, allowing her some privacy, but Blackwall catches up to her, his long legs outpacing her effortlessly. Cadash turns her face up to him with a faint frown. She wishes she’d asked anyone to come but him, so she wouldn’t need to endure this with Blackwall here.

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do, Inquisitor?” His hands work uselessly at his side. Everything about him is anxious, and it makes her nervous. 

“I can’t say it’s my first choice,” she admits honestly, watching his stony expression until he finally looks back down at her. If he’s going to question her decisions about this, he can at least face her about it. “I don’t have any better ideas and I don’t particularly like the thought of dying over it.”

“Do you think it would actually kill you? The magic is old.”

“I don’t know.” Cadash adjusts her glove absently. “Maybe Dorian can think how to counteract it without the, ah, traditional approach. Or maybe we have a new scout who can do impressions of Ser Aeric Ostergaard.”

Blackwall snorts with surprised laughter, which he immediately looks sorry for, waving off her incredulous stare. “Ostergaard? Maker, what would you want that for?”

Cadash lifts her eyebrows, only a little indignant. “I was at the Tourney the year Ostergaard won. I was fourteen and I’d been training for a few years. I was impressed with his mace. It didn’t hurt that he had the look of a champion.”

“And he the ego to match.” Blackwall laughs again, shaking his head. “You could do a great deal better than thinking of that upstart prick. Try Caillet, for one. Good sword arm, popular with the ladies. More sense than a nug.”

“Say what you will,” Cadash says dismissively, though she is smiling. “Aeric Ostergaard will always be my first true love.” For an instant, when he looks down at her and his brow is relaxed and his eyes bright with laughter, Cadash remembers that she was in love with him once, too. That she is. Then Blackwall’s eyes darken, probably because her expression has softened, and he dips his head in formal acquiescence. 

“At your service, my lady,” he says stiffly, slowing until Cassandra and Dorian overtake him, resuming his place at the back of the group.

Dorian tips his head back toward Blackwall, “What was that about?” 

“Ser Blackwall objects to the object of my youthful affections,” Cadash quips back immediately, attempting to keep the subject light in spite of the growing sense of dread.

“I can hardly see how that concerns _him_ now.” Dorian’s voice is heavy with the irony of it and Cadash remembers that her every move is scrutinized and bandied around as gossip within the Inquisition. Even the private embarrassment of being spurned cannot be secret anymore.

Darkness begins to creep toward them from the far edge of the horizon as they approach camp. Cassandra leads them to the central tent, firmly tying the strings shut when they’ve all filed inside.

“You’re certain about this curse, Dorian?” Cassandra stands beside Cadash, her hands folded to hide her agitation.

He shrugs. “I’d rather hoped the curse would dissipate with time, since the rest of the magic on the door was weakened. I think the curse was supposed to take full effect sooner, but it is still quite deadly, perhaps more so for being on such a long, ah, _fuse_.”

Cadash leans against the requisition officer’s table, as much from weariness as to give herself rest as she burns with fever. “He’s right,” she says simply.

Dorian tug his sleeve into place nervously. “I tried a few things on our way back from the temple.” At a furious noise from Cassandra, he waves a hand lightly. “Just some diagnostic magic. Pulling on the Fade, looking at the structure of the--oh, never mind. In any case, dwarves have a natural resistance to magic, so I don’t think I managed anything. Unless you were feeling better, Inquisitor?”

At her blank stare, he sighs. “I didn’t think so. I suppose we could draw straws for the lucky gentleman. There are a few soldiers out there.” Dorian finishes with his sleeve and crosses his arms defensively. 

“We aren’t going to do that,” Cadash says firmly. This is a foolish thing to die for, but it would be an outrageous use her power as Inquisitor to order one of the soldiers to do this. The betrayal of their confidence would be catastrophic.

“Well, my dear, that leaves us short of options.”

“We could ask for volunteers,” Cassandra suggests, pacing the tent irritably. She shakes her head like a wet cat, closing her hand into a fist. “If it were not an order, then it would not be so bad.”

“I’ll do it.”

Blackwall finally moves from the corner of the tent, where he has been unmoving and silent as a statue. Cadash had forgotten about Blackwall, having set him aside in her mental arithmetic. Her stomach sinks uncomfortably and her face begins to burn, but Blackwall is right. There is no other realistic or timely option available to her this far from any of the main Inquisition outposts.

Cassandra stops dead in the center of the tent, whirling around to search Blackwall with her stormy eyes. “You?” Her voice is incredulous. 

Dorian makes a muffled noise that he turns to a cough. “That is an idea. Not that we have any good ones,” he says with false cheer belied by the suspicious twist to his mouth. “Inquisitor, surely you may have some thoughts on this?”

Of course she does. She thinks that she would like to be the one slipping out of his quarters in the gray dawn with a blissfully slack expression, but she doesn’t want it like this. Blackwall will hate it, she thinks grimly. Cadash could endure the embarrassment of this, but not that he will resent her for it. Yet she must be reasonable, trusting that he will be honorable enough not to let her see that it disturbs him and do the same in return.

Pushing up to her feet, Cadash swallows all her thoughts, struggling to keep her voice even when she responds: “Very well.” 

Dorian composes himself again, exchanging a quick look with Cassandra, but he doesn’t object further. “Well, you know how this works, right?”

“I think we both have a pretty good idea.” Blackwall comes beside her but doesn’t look down at her. Cadash supposes that’s fair. He didn’t want to be the only appropriate choice any more than she wanted to be cursed.

“If there’s nothing more to it than that, I’d just as well get it over with,” she announces with the note of authority that the Inquisition’s soldiers respond to. This must happen, and she will handle it with as much dignity as she can be afforded, as if it is even available to her now. 

Cadash feels foolish leading him to her tent, but her knees are trembling now, and she will have enough trouble relaxing well enough to do this. She tries instead to keep her head straight and her shoulders relaxed when she parts the flap for him. When Cadash finishes securing the tent closure and turns around, Blackwall is only watching her with a curious expression. It’s almost as if he is struggling to find the words to speak to her, and she finds that she can’t bear to hear whatever it is he might say. 

“Normally, I might offer you a cup of wine,” she tries as she passes him on her way to the far side of the tent to begin removing her armor. It’s a silly effort on her part, to naively pretend she can maintain this safe distance forever, but removing her armor brings a blast of cool air and a shiver.

“Well, I can’t do any impressions of Aeric Ostergaard,” Blackwall says, but the humor is already gone when she looks up to find that he has set his gloves to the side and unlaced his gambeson. Cadash’s stomach twists at the sight of him, broad and dark and handsome; at how inappropriate it is for her to want him now.

“That’s not necessary,” she attempts, as if he would even need to imitate anyone to make her want him. Her smallclothes are damp under her woolen leggings, and Cadash would trade almost anything for this to be real. But it isn’t, and no amount of wishing will make it so. “It won’t take long,” she promises aloud, reminding herself that this is a matter of practicality.

“My lady,” he answers stiffly, crossing the tent toward her with a single glance at the flap of the tent, likely to check that it’s closed. “Let me help you.” 

Blackwall’s fingers are warm, but when they brush even slightly against her bare skin, fire creeps back down her limbs. Cadash tries to ground herself, to think of anything but what’s happening so she cannot betray to him that she wants this, but she can’t hide how she responds to him. She closes her eyes, reaching blindly for his belt, but she gets no farther than that before those warm fingers encircle her wrists.

“I’ll do that,” he whispers to the top of her head, patiently guiding her hands to her sides. Blackwall is slow to remove the last of her clothing, setting each item aside with deliberate care until she is bare in front of him. Cadash has never felt embarrassed by herself before--her body is powerful and capable of whatever she needs of it--but now she feels vulnerable. She cannot decide if putting out the lantern would make it feel too intimate or give her the gift of unseeing blackness, but she doesn’t move. 

His eyes do not linger on her body, so she folds her arms over her breasts while he undresses and offers him the privacy of her back to him. Though she is bursting with things to say, what could she she can say to him now to make this better? She will have to settle for making him as comfortable as possible through this. With the sounds of Blackwall rustling around behind her, she looks down at herself. Cadash is surprised at how little pain she’s in. If not for her elevated heartbeat, the characteristic ache and chills of a high fever, and the inexplicable sense of wrongness that feels like lead in the pit of her belly--that is to say, everything possible--she might not know anything was wrong.

“Are you ready?” Blackwall’s voice rumbles through the refuge of her thoughts. She finds him kneeling beside her bedroll without a stitch of clothing, his cock soft on his thigh, and she turns away to keep from staring. He made it clear that they couldn’t be together and she promised that she would respect that decision.

“Let’s finish this.” 

Her throat is dry, but she comes to him. Even on his knees he is taller, though only by inches, rather than feet. Her eyes find his and they freeze in place, seconds ticking past. He has changed his mind, she thinks, and doesn’t know how to tell her that she will have to find a different solution quickly. Just as Cadash opens her mouth to tell him that she’ll find another way, Blackwall’s wide hands lift and cup her face between his palms. He bends forward and kisses her, slow at first, but then his lips part and the kiss warms, as if he can now forget that it’s her. 

If Blackwall can pretend for a moment, then so will she, imagining that this is more, that this is any of the hundred scenarios she imagined before he took her to the battlements and crushed every one of them at once. For a moment, she permits herself to dwell on the tickle of his chest hair on her breasts, the heat radiating from him that eases her shivering. A flash of desire sparks somewhere low and deep inside her, more urgent now than it has ever been before. Cadash parts her mouth for him, moaning when she feels his cock stir against her thigh, less than a handsbreadth from the very center of her need. 

One of his hands drops to her breast and Cadash leans into it, whimpering quietly when Blackwall rolls a nipple between his fingertips, bucking her hips against his erection and swallowing the muffled noise that he makes in turn. His hand leaves her breast to skim along her slick thigh, sliding his fingertips along her folds. He flicks one across the swollen knot of nerves at the top and Cadash’s concentration cracks momentarily. She forces herself to be still, biting into her lip to keep centered.

Blackwall looks down at her, his blue eyes softened, dipping his fingers into her. It is the first sense of relief Cadash has felt in hours, since the spell first struck her, and she bites her lip, squeezing her eyes closed as she takes his fingers. He traces the thumb on his free hand along the sensitive length of her cheekbone, murmuring something she can’t understand through the rush of blood in her ears, but it is that singular, intimate gesture which sends Cadash reeling back to reality.

“Don’t,” she chokes, pushing her hand against his chest. Blackwall freezes in place, abruptly removing his hands from her, and she immediately regrets the sharp cold that fills the void left from his hands.

“Lady Cadash?”

“Don’t touch me like you love me. Please, I can’t--” Cadash turns her face away, ignoring the hard lump in her throat. If he thought that she had moved on as he has, he will know different now. She cannot allow the single clinging shred of hope it gives her when he touches her tenderly, when his voice sounds heavy and wanting around her name. “Please, I just want to finish this.”

The confused expression clouding his brow when Blackwall draws back is the last thing she sees before she scrabbles to her knees, leaning back on her elbows. Cadash forces herself to face him again, but this time she can’t keep from sweeping her eyes over his body, though her vision is beginning to cloud at the edges from the fever. The light that seemed comfortingly stark before is softer for the candles burning lower, and she tries valiantly to focus her attention on his innumerable scars, scattered like constellations on his skin. His prick rises proudly from a dark thatch of hair that spreads up his belly and over his chest, something Cadash suspected before, when she allowed herself to fantasize about him, but seeing is different than imagining while grinding against the heel of her hand in the privacy of her quarters. 

Blackwall takes himself in hand--she cannot be imagining the minute tremble in his grip--and strokes twice before opening his mouth to ask her permission, though he never quite finds the words. 

“Yes,” she says quietly, turning her face into her shoulder so he can’t see her face when he pushes into her. Cadash shudders quietly, bucking her hips up against him once before she clenches a fist and nods to him. “Do it.”

Cadash could not have contrived a less romantic lead in, but Blackwall is slow to start moving in her, giving her the time she needs to catch her breath. When she trusts herself enough to sneak a look at him, his eyes are closed and the muscle in his jaw is tensed, his weight resting on his palms on either side of her. Her stomach drops, and perhaps it will be easier if she imagines that this is neither of them, that it is a faceless encounter like the ones she had between jobs for the Carta. She tries, thinks of a dozen faces in turn, and invariably crashes back to thinking of him, of their reality.

It isn’t working. Blackwall is _trying_ to make this work for her and there’s nothing wrong about what he’s doing, but it’s increasingly evident to Cadash that she’s not getting anywhere. She’s overstimulated, aching all over now, and beginning to tremble uncontrollably from a creeping chill that settles in her chest.

“This isn’t--” she tries, but when his eyes are open and on hers again, her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. 

“Cadash,” he attempts between breaths, tipping her face toward his. “We don’t have much time, but I want this to be good for you.” 

Suddenly, Cadash recognizes his pained expression as concerned, his restraint as concern and not disgust. What if he wants this as much as she does? _What if--?_ Her chest contracts, somewhere between soaring and dipping, and she pushes herself back onto her elbows. “What do I need to do?” 

Like a break in a storm, Blackwall’s forehead clears. “Put your legs around my waist,” he instructs in a firm tone that Cadash hasn’t heard since they met, when he shouted at her to help or leave. When she locks her ankles in the small of his back, Blackwall’s hands slide under her shoulders, readying himself to lift her up. Cadash begins to protest--short as she is, she’s no delicate noblewoman--but he is already sitting back, shifting her in his lap so she doesn’t slide off his cock. Instead, she doesn’t recognize herself in the whimpering noise she makes when she falls forward, steadies herself with her hands on his shoulders, and sinks lower onto him.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she says quickly, though he feels enormous now, as if he’s filling every empty space inside of her at once. Resting her forehead on his shoulder, Cadash breathes in slowly, overwhelmed and shivering a little from her fever, and she presses a wistful kiss into his shoulder. 

“Relax,” he whispers, and it sounds almost as if he is trying to persuade himself as much as her. For all she wanted this to mean nothing, hoped to forget her feelings about him long enough to get past this, the last of Cadash’s resolve crumbles. She lays her palms on his neck, sends a prayer to whatever might hear that she won’t come to regret how earnestly she wants him, and kisses him desperately.

Blackwall’s response is immediate. He curls his fingers around her soft hips, his broad hands large enough to hold her easily. When she tentatively rolls her hips against his, she finds the perfect angle, the exact friction she needs, and he moans something that feels like her name against her mouth. He thrusts up half a second too early, then a beat too late to catch the next downward grind against him, but they find the right rhythm with his next jerking thrust. 

Cadash twists her fingers in his hair, breaking the kiss to catch her breath, but all that comes is a wanton cry that clips off abruptly when she pushes down onto him. Perhaps it’s the curse-induced fever in her blood, or because this is better than her most outrageous fantasies of him, but she hardly notices him murmuring in her ear at first, his breath is coming in shallow, urgent bursts on the hot skin of her neck, but she hears her name, a jumbling of words that don’t make sense at first-- _wanted--always--you_ \--and then Cadash hears nothing more. The shock of that revelation mixes with her overheated need, snapping the knot of tension that pulses at her core and floods her fever-wracked body with blessed warmth. 

“Blackwall,” she gasps and his cock twitches inside her, but she’s too far gone to hear him now. “Fuck me--fuck, _fuck_ \--”

When her blood has quit roaring, Cadash finds herself blinking spots from her vision, slumped forward in Blackwall’s arms and far too weary to pull away. She takes stock of herself: a bit sticky, sated, somewhat embarrassed, but her fever and the accompanying aches are gone. Blackwall looks very much the same, his hair hanging damp on his shoulders, his eyes half-closed while he catches his breath. 

She searches for her voice, trying to compose herself even with her fingers resting intimately on his neck. “Thank you,” she attempts, but the words come out low and breathy. “For--”

“Cadash.” Blackwall’s thumb traces her parted lips and his expression is so openly intimate that she wants to look away. “I wanted this with you. Maybe not like this, but--”

“Oh.” Whatever she expected after anticipating embarrassment, disgust, or awkwardness, it wasn’t this. That he might feel the same as she does, that his concern for her since the temple, his anxiety, his anger, it all fits together now. His hands stroke along her sides, pausing over the tense knots in her muscles before moving on.

“I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I could… pretend it hadn’t mattered to me, that it wasn’t different than--” She thinks of the Orlesian scout, his avoidance, how he never seemed to trust himself to be alone with her, and shakes her head, laughing quietly into his shoulder. 

“I was wrong,” he finishes finally, and she presses a finger to his lip. 

“We’ll talk,” she promises. “You don’t have to justify yourself, but we need to talk about all of this.” Cadash gestures vaguely between the two of them with a weary smile. There are a great many things that need to be resolved, perhaps when they’re both clothed again.

“Someone will need to tell the others that you’re not going to die.” Blackwall guides her down to the bedroll. He drapes a blanket over her and seems surprised when Cadash pulls him down beside her. 

“They’ll figure it out,” she sighs, draping herself over him, tucking her head in the hollow crook of his shoulder and neck, and falls asleep almost immediately to the sound of Blackwall’s steadied breathing.


End file.
